Sapphire’s Radeon HD 5850 Toxic Edition: Our First Fully-Custom 5850
by Ryan Smith on February 18, 2010 10:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Power, Temperature, & Noise
On the one hand, by overclocking this card Sapphire has ultimately increased the power draw of the card and the amount of heat it will be generating. On the other hand with the Vapor-X cooler, they’re better equipped to siphon out that heat, and to do so without making much in the way of additional noise. So let’s see how things pan out.
Right off the bat, the Toxic is at a disadvantage for power usage as we expected. At idle it operates at the same voltages and clocks as a reference 5850, so our 9W difference ultimately comes down to board differences; remember, the Toxic has a number of additional components compared to the reference card, particularly capacitors. Under load the difference is 17W, due to a combination of components and clock speeds. This is ultimately in-line with where you’d expect it to be based on the higher clock speeds.
Moving to temperature, we can see the difference the Vapor-X cooler makes. The 5850 was always a particularly cool card, and surprisingly the Toxic does worse here. We’re measuring the temperature of the GPU, so any extra heat produced by the Toxic’s component selection shouldn’t be factoring in. The difference likely comes down to the coolers – a shrouded blower that fully exhausts hot air looks to be a more efficient option under these circumstances.
It’s under load where the Vapor-X cooler on the Toxic shines. Even though the card is overclocked and drawing an additional 17W, it still bests the reference cooler by 3C. It’s not a massive amount, but then again it’s only 3C warmer than even the 5670.
So the reference 5850 cooler may be a bit better at keeping temperatures down at idle, but it’s not the quietest option. Here the Toxic can do 2dB quieter. It’s a similar story under load, where it’s 2.4dB quieter than the reference cooler, and once again take in to consideration the fact that the Toxic is dispersing 17W of additional heat in the process.
As for our fully overclocked Toxic, the 895MHz/1175MHz clocks push power consumption up by another 27W to 339W under load. Even with the now 44W difference between it and the reference 5850, the noise generated by the Toxic and the GPU temperatures are in a dead-heat with the much slower reference 5850. There’s no question that the Toxic’s Vapor-X cooler is a superior cooler, and this leaves us wondering just how much more it can take if we could overvolt the GPU.
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soccerplayer88 - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
I'll give you all a hint for overclocking it further. Flash the bios.Hell I just told you what to do, now you just have to google it.
Anyways, I've pushed my card to 880/1220. And by the way, what's up with your temps?! My card overclocked to hell is about 10C cooler than your setup. Sounds like poor airflow to me.
dvdreplication - Thursday, February 25, 2010 - link
Well it looks like a giant. Is it fixed or not? I hope that it 'll prove to be a great product. Thanks for sharing such an informative article.darthbinky - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
For what it's worth, I thought I'd mention that I saw this card for sale on SuperBiiz.com for $310 with a promo code. Everywhere else seems to be selling them for upwards of $350, with stock running out.http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=AT-585TX1G&c=...">http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=AT-585TX1G&c=...
I haven't ordered from this site before (I usually go Newegg), so don't consider this a recommendation.
v12v12 - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
Goooood LORD look at the power requirements at load!? The noise and heat?! The GPU industry is LAUGHABLE Vs CPU Vs common-sense engineering. Still more brute-force crapware being metered out to the public. While CPUs are completely in another universe regarding TDP.SINGLE-core? Why in the hell are there still these relics being mass produced? METERED-TECHNOLOGY folks... you're all getting hustled w/every release of the market spin-masters "toxic, lava, HAL9000, Halo3" edition releases. Stop buying this crap and they'll stop producing it!?
Lastly: I've noticed that with many of these so-called "performance" stock HSFs= the engineering tolerances are WAAAAY off! There's all kinds of gaps between the HSF and the ram ICs! They use the cheapest POS, filler TIM (thermal-interface-material) they possibly can to omit real design tolerances! White zinc-gunk is what I call it... When are we going to start demanding some real innovations here with these fraudsters? 3-pipe, aluminum HSF? Ummm GARBAGE! I'll take Zalman's VF-900 and all the custom brackets and stuff that people have been making for YEARS—will still outperform this crap metal, shived lump of a HSF.
__What a joke... soon as you buy one of these cards, you're dropping another $30-50 on real after-market HSF + TIM + time if you want anything livable and not an in-case heater unit. Come on folks... this is the best you can spend your dollars on? Over-priced, under-equipped, cheaply cooled junk... Kids these days are even more the suckers than they assume their parents are. You guys have no clue how to smart-shop if you're buying into all this gimmick-marketing.
Give me a damn OEM card, no cooler, no cheap TIM; nothing but the PCB! No fancy ass colors and sh!t esp. WHO CARES what color it is, if it's adding another $10+ to the cost of the card. The whole point of the card is to go INTO a box and PERFORM. I don't want to hear, nor see the card glowing from LEDS or marvel at some "awesome" paint job. When are people going to get that, FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION! Oh wait not in marketing-sucker's-world-2.0....
Seesh.
ThermalVent - Friday, March 5, 2010 - link
Erm why not take your ass out of your head.. I brought one of these at a cut price.I get 900Mhz + out of the core and 1300Mhz memory, completely stable and thoroughly tested.
Not once does it go over 50 Degress celcius under full load for several hours, when idle at these clocks it sits at 23 degrees....................
ThermalVent - Monday, March 8, 2010 - link
make that 1050 core and 1300 memory, completely stable and 28c idle 52 full load after several hours of playing games!austonia - Tuesday, February 23, 2010 - link
lame attempt at trolling or just ignorant and off medication? hard to tell.v12v12 - Friday, February 26, 2010 - link
Cut the ad hominem and refute my claims then if you've got something intelligent/on topic to say? If not, please stop wasting time with juvenile 1-upping; douche.austonia - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
for a custom card the OC capability is pretty weak, especially considering the additional expense. i have a stock Sapphire 5850 that runs at 900 core/1300 memory at stock voltage, and 1000/1300 at 1.25v using AMD GPU clock tool and MSI Afterburner utility. stable in Crysis benchmark looping and Furmark. this was from an early batch too, about a month after they came out.araczynski - Monday, February 22, 2010 - link
after all these years i'm still seeing no reason to upgrade my 4850x2.